Plastic products made from plastic materials are widely used in diverse fields such as the automotive field, shipbuilding and construction, as decorative materials, substitute materials for inorganic glass, all manner of optical materials including mirrors and lenses, and various display materials.
The surfaces of these plastic materials are usually prone to scratching, and therefore in a known technique, a thermosetting resin or photocurable resin or the like is typically coated onto a substrate composed of the plastic material, thereby forming a hard coating on the substrate surface.
However, even better scratch resistance (abrasion resistance) is being demanded of plastic products, and the level of abrasion resistance achievable by the type of hard coating treatment mentioned above has tended to be unsatisfactory.
As a result, Patent Document 1 discloses, as a material for a curable composition capable of forming a transparent coating that exhibits excellent abrasion resistance and curability, a coating composition including silica particles having (meth)acryloyl groups and a compound having a functional group that undergoes polymerization with these silica particles.
Further, Patent Document 2 discloses, as a material capable of forming a crosslinked cured film that exhibits favorable abrasion resistance and weather resistance and the like, as well as superior adhesion to substrates, a coating composition including a coating material obtained by reacting a colloidal silica with a radical polymerizable silane compound.
[Patent Document 1]
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2003-41148
[Patent Document 2]
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 7-109355